As I said in an earlier post in this forum, I was eventually gonna have to upgrade the wife's desktop, seeing as she was all jealous of my new Alienware laptop. Well, her Dell Dimension dual-core e520 desktop finally took a crap after 4 years, so the time came. She made it clear that she wanted gaming capabilities similar to my laptop, so I did an extensive search, looking for the best performance to price ratio. I found a company, Cyberpowerpc, that had excellent customability for the price, and was well reviewed. I went into this purchase trying to balance price against what I considered minimum requirements for a satisfying gaming experience. Here's what I ordered, and I should have it in 8 days. I also seperately ordered an ASUS 27" HD Monitor, Razer mouse and gaming pad. She doesn't know about those goodies. That's my little extra surprise for her! Should be good for a blow.... Oh oops!, this ain't the shack! Anyhoo, here are some pics of the cool case (they offer many options!), plus the specs that we both agreed on. It's kind of a starter system, but the case will accomodate any future upgrades I can throw at it.... Like dual GPU's in the near future. I think she'll be happy with this little beast for awhile though.... Here's the pics and specs:

That was an interesting read. I suddenly feel much more educated on GPU's. After reading it, I feel that maybe it's better to just shell out the cash on a single top-end card than mess with the multi-card configs. I was annoyed to read that both companies purposely limit their lesser cards for multi-card setups to steer you to their more profitable high-end cards. Typical corporate bs. If you remember, my laptop is running dual 2-gig GTX 580's in SLI, and I haven't noticed any micro-stuttering. Of course they did say it was less noticable the faster your cards are, and those are top-end. That, or I'm just not as nitpicky as those testers. Or maybe I'm just too old to notice! Thanks for the link.

Last edited by BlueThunder on Sat Jan 28, 2012 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers

It is undoubtedly better to buy as much GPU as you can in one card, but you can go 3-way to not have the problem. However, the one thing that article lacks is a good explanation on what micro-stutter really is. A LOT of people think it's stutter you can actually see, i.e., random hitches/pauses/hiccups, and that's not what it is.

Micro-stutter is basically this: 90 FPS feels more like 50-60 FPS, and 60 FPS feels more like 45, and 45 FPS feels more like 35 FPS. Some people aren't bugged by it, but I sure was until I added a 3rd 5870 and the problem pretty much went entirely away.

RolandDeschain wrote: A LOT of people think it's stutter you can actually see, i.e., random hitches/pauses/hiccups, and that's not what it is.

Yeah, that's what I thought it was. They should have explained that better. I've got a question for you... Right now, generally, how much graphics memory is actually required to run pretty much every game out there at max settings? I mean, where's the point to where you're just showin' off, and not really getting any benifit from all those extra gigs of graphics memory? 2 gigs? 3? 6? Let's assume the rest of the system is up to snuff, like i5 or i7 processor, and 8 gigs or more of Ram. What's your opinion on this?

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers

BF3 and SWTOR pretty much use all of the 3GB I have from running 3 5870s. I really think the new 7970 cards from AMD should have come with 4GB of RAM instead of 3, since modern games seem to already max them out. 2986MB used as of right now while in SWTOR, lol...

Now, Windows will actually use your system RAM for overage but it's not as effective/fast.

3GB *SEEMS* fine for now, but since I can't test it with more, I honestly don't know. Would SWTOR go to 3.5GB, or bump up to like 5GB? No clue. The more there is, the more a game can stick in the RAM and leave there, so less hard drive swapping and such; depends on how much effort the game's developers put into it, honestly.

Hey Roland, I found this recent post at a computer tech forum and found it interesting. Alot of it is about what we've been discussing here. Seems like the guy knows his stuff. It has to do with building an "enthusiasts" gaming computer with lots of GPU stuff. Wanted to see what you thought of the OP and the responses. I'm gonna bookmark this site for references. Looks pretty good.

For me, this link goes to the middle of the page. You may have to scroll back to the top to see the post I'm talking about. I don't know why it does that. Maybe it's just my computer.

HardOCP's forum has plenty of good discussion on it, it's one of a number of sites I've been going to for a decade, if not more. I actually read that thread the day it was posted. He's more or less right, but his statement about AMD's Crossfire drivers sucking isn't very accurate anymore, as the latest beta driver brings support for custom Crossfire profiles, which is/was one of the biggest knocks against AMD versus Nvidia in regards to multi-GPU stuff. Even so, SLI seems to be a little more robust than Crossfire overall as far as performance scaling goes, but most direct comparisons are pretty marginal, so it's a moot point in reality, in my opinion.

His point about non-reference PCBs is also not always accurate. Sometimes custom designs are worse than the reference ones. More often than not it's the opposite, a hardware manu customizes it to improve it and sell it at a higher cost, but that also carries its own problems sometimes.

His "Nvidia outperforms AMD by 15% historically" thing isn't very accurate, either. Sometimes AMD leads for a generation (the 5870) and sometimes Nvidia leads for a generation. (The 580 GTX) They've had a history of swapping and being very competitive. Also, the driver thing is very misleading. I point you to this as evidence: http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/27/nvid ... hes-in-20/

Yes, that's a bit of an outdated article coming from 2008, but look at the discrepancy between AMD (ATI at the time, before AMD bought them) and Nvidia for the cause of Windows Vista crashes. The market shares between Nvidia and ATI/AMD have varied one way or the other, but neither company has ever really had a huge lead in market share over the other in the past 5 years; so even if you had, say, a 60-40 split with Nvidia having more of a market share, that doesn't explain a discrepancy of having more than 3X the number of O/S crashes because of your driver.

Nvidia tends to release drivers a bit more often, but they sure aren't as stable sometimes.

I wholeheartedly agree that if you can swing it and it suits your needs, 1 "all-powerful" GPU is a better option than ANY two-GPU solution, though. Three seems to be pretty good, at least, it's working well for me; but that is also a lot of power and heat, as he points out. I have to crank up my GPU fans manually and they are rather noisy.

This is just a quick response before I hit the hay. I admit that I've been pretty much an Nvidia fanboy for several years now. It just kinda seems like I've had less problems when I've had an Nvidia card installed rather than AMD (ATI), and though more expensive than AMD, you got what ya paid for. That's kinda where I went to the Nvidia side. You seem to be an AMD guy. How do you know that AMD doesn't do the same thing and pay people to infiltrate message boards and blogs besmirching Nvidia cards? I do see that, people ranking on Nvidia. Both are fine companies, but of course I believe both companies, being in such fierce competion with one another, would go to great lengths to gain market share. I think this competitive market benifits us greatly, the end consumers with awesome products, but only if we get accurate information on the end stats of these products. That's where independant testers come in, to get the real nuts and bolts results. I appreciate AMD keeping their price to performance ratio below Nvidia, but I'm the type that will pay the difference for the best. And right now, I believe the EVGA GeForce GTX 590 Classified 3072 MB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 (my current dream card) would probably take any AMD offering (not counting uber-expensive professional cards) at this time. What do you think?

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers

I'm not an AMD/ATI guy, actually. I go with what's best when I'm looking to buy. What I had before my 5870s was an Nvidia 9800 GX2, and before that, an Nvidia 8800 GTX. I don't know that AMD/ATI don't do that, I just know they've never been caught at it, or accused that I've seen. Not to mention, when this first broke 5 or 6 years ago a lot of Nvidia fanboys tried to find evidence of ATI doing it, lol.

I certainly view ATI/AMD as a more ethical company than Nvidia, and there are a number of things that support that assertion that don't exist as far as anyone knows on ATI/AMD's end.

The 590 GTX is a supremely powerful card, (two GPUs in it) but the 6990 is actually a bit more powerful by most measured standards. Both are the best cards currently offered by either company, and each contains two GPUs. Look here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/rad ... ,3104.html

I'm not saying go with one or the other, but perceived opinions don't always match facts.

RolandDeschain wrote:The 590 GTX is a supremely powerful card, (two GPUs in it) but the 6990 is actually a bit more powerful by most measured standards. Both are the best cards currently offered by either company, and each contains two GPUs.

So, with each of these single cards having two GPU's, does micro-stuttering rear its ugly head?

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers

I drool at the prospect of installing two GTX 590's for 6 gigs of quad-SLI insanity! MUWAAHAHAHA! (rubbing hands together with crazed look in eyes). I don't know if I'll be able to resist the temptation...

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers

Ok, another question. When customizing the new rig, when it came to RAM it offered several different brands. I just went with the 12 gigs of "major brand" DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel RAM. It was considerably more if you ordered Kingston or other recognizable names. Is there a real difference? Or is it all just DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory?

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers

It seems like anything above 2 physical cards more or less eliminates micro-stutter, though it's possible going with 4 was just so much GPU power that it didn't matter much anymore; Tom's Hardware wasn't sure on that part of it. 3 has none, though. Also, with any SLI/Crossfire cards right next to each other inside a computer case, the cooling suffers dramatically. You will need to have some good case cooling, and even then, you'll likely have to manually raise your fan speeds to louder-than-preferred speeds. With 3 5870s, to keep my GPU temps below 95 degrees celsius when gaming, I have to have my fan speeds set to 75% or so. That is rather loud. I use headphones so it doesn't really bug me, but that's a lot of noise if you're using speakers.

The cooling on the 590 was one thing that impressed the testers. It utilizes dual vapor chambers that dramatically reduce the noise. Also, if the motherboard has lots of pci-e slots, you could probably skip a slot in-between the cards to further improve the cooling? This case I'm getting has fans galore, plus it's a full tower, and it's supposed to have great cooling. I also paid extra for sound insulation and sound dampening. I don't like noisy computers because most of the time I like to use the external speakers. I use my headset when I'm going to immerse myself in some intense, dark-room gaming. Here's a pic showing the layout of the 590.

And did you catch my question about the RAM above?

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers

The 590 has better noise levels under load than the 6990, that much is known; however, that wouldn't really be the case if you run 2-3 of them in one computer. Heat levels rise TREMENDOUSLY which will keep the fans running at much higher speeds consistently.

When I had one 5870 in my case, it idled around 30 degrees celsius and went to the upper 50s under load. When I put a second one in right next to it, the IDLE temp went to 57-60 and under load, 100-107 if I left the fans on auto.

When I separated them and put the main 5870 in the top, left the middle open, and put the second 5870 on the bottom, it helped a bit, but not a whole lot. Top card had 93-98 temps under load with fan on auto. Having 3 cards (I have a 3-slot motherboard for PCI-Xpress x16 slots) all right next to each other, it's brutal. I'd burn out my cards if I left the fans on auto. I was curious and decided to test it, and the temp was still rising as it hit 110 and I turned the fans on manual and set to 80%, and the temps dropped back into the lower 90s/upper 80s on load.

Dual-GPU cards like the 590 and 6990 are considerably hotter than single-GPU cards like my 5870s, just so you know. If you're planning on running two or three 590s, I'd highly recommend getting ones that come with the best cooling you can find on them; or prepare yourself to have very loud fan noise constantly, or put up the dough to install good water cooling on your GPUs. Those are your only options; and even with the best fan cooling you can find on 590s, you're still going to have loud fan noise.

RAM is one of the things it pays to have good brand name quality with. I recommend Mushkin, Crucial or Corsair. In that order. I'm in a rush with work-related stuff at the moment, I can explain more later, but quality RAM matters and you DON'T have to pay through the nose for it. Check newegg.com.

Man, you were right about the ram prices. When did memory prices fall through the floor? I can upgrade to 16 gigs ddr3 1600 of the brands you mentioned for about a hundred bucks! WTF? Still wanna know the diff between the top brands and the lesser brands though, even though price is no longer an obstacle.

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers

Started around 3 years ago, maybe? Prices were super high for like 18 months due to some type of rare metal supply problem IIRC, then that got resolved and prices started dropping. No reason not to buy premium RAM, or at least a good brand, nowadays.

RAM is the component that fails the most in computers. Cheap RAM in particular, some of the lesser brands have horrible failure rates. Besides this, however, quality RAM tends to be more overclockable, and have better (tighter) timings. Less likely to have compatibility problems with whatever motherboard you have, as well. Cheaper RAM has a higher chance of having some sort of problem with any given motherboard.

Also, one thing most people don't think about is the more RAM you have, the more Windows will use. For instance, format a fresh computer and you have 4GB of RAM in it, you might have 1GB used on startup. If you have 16GB, it's like 2.5GB used. Not only does this help Windows be more responsive in some ways, (doesn't have to hit your hard drive as much, it can just keep spare stuff in your RAM) but if you have an SSD, it adds life to it as well due to less reads/writes. For the record, all SSDs have a limited life span. You can only read and write to NAND memory cells so many times before they fail.

Just thought I'd update you Roland. The new gaming desktop is awesome! The "Windows Experience" thing is almost even with my laptop...for a 3rd of the price, although the hard drives on both computers are 5.9, dragging down the 7.8 to 7.9 on everything else, even with the hybrid drives on the laptop. Any tricks you know to get those scores up without breaking the bank with SSD? And the RAM thing? Apparently they had a special going that wasn't available when I ordered it, but they honored it because my computer was in production when the free upgrade was offered. The RAM I received is Kingston Hyper X DDR3 1600. Is that ok? Sure looks all fancy and shit. lol And heavy! I can tell it's been 10 years since I built a computer 'cause last time I bought RAM it was just 4 to 8 chips on a rectangular circuit board. My how things have changed in such a short time! And Deb now has her new ASUS 27" HDMI monitor (sent back the first one, dead pixel), so I stole her Dell 24 incher and am now using it with the laptop. What an upgrade there! It's full 1920 x 1200 res, about 4 years old. I've got it hooked up DVI 'cause it doesn't have an HDMI input. I actually found a cable I had that was hdmi to dvi, so I used that to hook it up with the Alienware. I have no idea where I got that cable from. It was like, check this out! wtf? I have no idea what I bought that had that cable included. Now I don't have to lean forward to read stuff anymore! lol Anyhoo, just an update. Oh, and I haven't installed a game yet that I haven't been able to set to max res settings without even a hiccup. Sweet! Not gonna invest in any video cards until I see this one struggle.

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers

BlueThunder wrote:Just thought I'd update you Roland. The new gaming desktop is awesome! The "Windows Experience" thing is almost even with my laptop...for a 3rd of the price, although the hard drives on both computers are 5.9, dragging down the 7.8 to 7.9 on everything else, even with the hybrid drives on the laptop. Any tricks you know to get those scores up without breaking the bank with SSD? And the RAM thing? Apparently they had a special going that wasn't available when I ordered it, but they honored it because my computer was in production when the free upgrade was offered. The RAM I received is Kingston Hyper X DDR3 1600. Is that ok? Sure looks all fancy and shit. lol And heavy! I can tell it's been 10 years since I built a computer 'cause last time I bought RAM it was just 4 to 8 chips on a rectangular circuit board. My how things have changed in such a short time! And Deb now has her new ASUS 27" HDMI monitor (sent back the first one, dead pixel), so I stole her Dell 24 incher and am now using it with the laptop. What an upgrade there! It's full 1920 x 1200 res, about 4 years old. I've got it hooked up DVI 'cause it doesn't have an HDMI input. I actually found a cable I had that was hdmi to dvi, so I used that to hook it up with the Alienware. I have no idea where I got that cable from. It was like, check this out! wtf? I have no idea what I bought that had that cable included. Now I don't have to lean forward to read stuff anymore! lol Anyhoo, just an update. Oh, and I haven't installed a game yet that I haven't been able to set to max res settings without even a hiccup. Sweet! Not gonna invest in any video cards until I see this one struggle.

Make sure the pics show you nerding it up in a game of some sort, too. None of this "showing a Windows wallpaper" crap.

Kingston is a decent memory brand, you're fine there; the Hyper-X is one of their higher-end series, so no worries. You absolutely will not break 5.9 without an actual SSD on your score, though; so stop trying, hahaha. I can't recommend a decent SSD enough to anyone and everyone, though. They make all the difference in the world for just fluidity and overall responsive "feel" on a computer.

Ok, here's my half-assed effort at photographing our two computer workstations... The flash on the cam makes them look completely different than they look normally. They look really cool in the dark like they normally are.

Deb's new beast from CyberPower still crudely set up. Wires everywhere. You can't see most of 'em, but it's still a mess under there until I get a new pack of hooks and zip ties. Yeah, I brought up MW3 so you guys wouldn't give me shit! lol

Pulled out the case to show the window. I just didn't feel like taking off the side panel to show the guts. Really not that much to show. Though it is a pretty cool looking motherboard. Just being lazy.

Next two show the liquid cooling system. If I popped the top, you could see the radiator that those two fans are cooling. Actually, you can see it if you look close.

Those 3 blue things below the right fan are the Hyper X 4 gig RAM modules...

The CyberPower stuffed in it's hole...

And the top view...

All these next images are of my little world with my Alienware M18x gaming laptop, more powerful that the Cyberpower believe it or not. This is with the 24" Dell hooked up that I salvaged from Deb's old computer. This area is also in complete disarray! Yeah, I'm a slob, but I'll git 'er done! lol

My little slice of heaven. Note the .Net screen Dom... you requesting the pics... lol Didn't notice that 'till I was posting them. That keyboard is the same one Deb has. She tried it and liked it and wanted one. I don't use the palm rest like she has. I just plop in on my lap and it's perfect.

Here's a look at the actual m18x screen. Has to be seen to be fully appreciated. Preferred when sitting in an upright postion at a table or something, where your eyes are close to the screen like they normally would be with a laptop.

Here is my view 99% of the time when I'm vegging on the internet. 65" plasma on the left, Computer on the right. I know... I'm pathetic... lol Maybe I wouldn't be so fat if I didn't have this setup! Ooo! I think that's Dom and Roland posting on .Net there in that last pic!

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers

Thanks for the pics. Reminds me so much of my life several years ago. I was into my PC and server operations so much. My life has changed and now I find it hard to fit all that activity in. Cool stuff you got there!

I quit reading it when I found out Deb ordered Elements 10, the new version which should be here tomorrow. I'm sure more hours of reading are in store now! *groan* Sometimes it's best to just jump in with a copy of a photo and mess around with it and learn the damn thing like a man! Screw the book! lol And yeah, that keyboard is the shit. Would recommend it to my best friend. Hey, I did that! He's got one and loves it!

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers

Nice; I recognize the case, too. That 27" is pretty far back on the desk; that would annoy me, personally. (Then again, I tend to lean back in my chair much of the time; putting my eyes further back than most people's.)

Side note, bitching about the keyboard; I really wish one of the major gaming peripheral companies (Logitech, Saitek, Razer, whomever) would make a keyboard like that that is a split ergonomic style. I can't stand flat/straight keyboards, and I want to be able to still use my wrists by the time I'm 70.

By the way, if your computer room doesn't have decent air conditioning, I'd watch the temps on both the desktops and the laptop once the hotter days of summer are around. Even water cooling can be insufficient in a very cramped space like you have that one desktop computer wedged into. Some people tend to forget that water cooling does not reduce the amount of heat the CPU/GPU/etc. generate, it simply disperses it more efficiently and quickly.

RolandDeschain wrote:Nice; I recognize the case, too. That 27" is pretty far back on the desk; that would annoy me, personally. (Then again, I tend to lean back in my chair much of the time; putting my eyes further back than most people's.)

Side note, bitching about the keyboard; I really wish one of the major gaming peripheral companies (Logitech, Saitek, Razer, whomever) would make a keyboard like that that is a split ergonomic style. I can't stand flat/straight keyboards, and I want to be able to still use my wrists by the time I'm 70.

By the way, if your computer room doesn't have decent air conditioning, I'd watch the temps on both the desktops and the laptop once the hotter days of summer are around. Even water cooling can be insufficient in a very cramped space like you have that one desktop computer wedged into. Some people tend to forget that water cooling does not reduce the amount of heat the CPU/GPU/etc. generate, it simply disperses it more efficiently and quickly.

Thanks for the pics!

Yeah, the monitor thing. She had the 24" about a foot closer. I'm not really sure why she has it sitting back so far. When I use it, I scooch it up so I can actually enjoy it's size. I dunno. I kinda get a funny feeling that she really liked her Dell monitor, and this is kind of a passive-aggressive way of letting me know that she didn't need me to spend money on a new monitor. I almost think she's pissed that I stole her monitor! lol That's why I haven't asked her about it... I'm thinking I don't want to hear her response!

The keyboard? I hear ya brother! I searched and searched for an ergo gamer and found one, but it was really lame. That link you posted? That's my old keyboard! I went through 3 Natural keyboards, two wired, one wireless over the last 8 years or so, and I love them! But, I really wanted a backlit gaming keyboard (for playing in a dark room) so I had to just find the best regular layout one I could and get used to it. My wireless Natural still works, and is my backup. Deb hates ergo keyboards for some reason. I just find them so comfortable. Someone is really missing a niche market there. You and me are examples. I do like this Cyborg alot though. It's a very nice feeling board, and heavy! I like that! Quality.

As far as the nook where the case is... I looked at the pics, and they're very deceiving. There is actually more room that the pics would suggest. The right side of the case is solid with no vents or anything, so I normally have it pushed over to the right side. That gives me about 4 inches on the left side where there are intake fans. Also, before I shoved the new case in there, I removed the thin wood backing of the cabinet so it's completely open now. So, contrary to what the pictures suggest, I am satisfied that there is plenty of room to push air through there. I think when I pulled out the case to take pics, I forgot to shove it back over to the right, so it does look like it barely fits in there. I've never had a heat alarm go off, and I've never had to set the fans on high. Another thing... We talked earlier in this thread before I got the thing about fan noise. Well, I guess the extra bucks I paid for sound insulation and fan gaskets paid off, 'cause this thing runs whisper quiet, even with the fans set to high. The Dell was way louder. A pleasant surprise! I haven't pulled up the internal temps yet (not quite sure how to view them. I'll look into that tonight). When I figure that out, I'll beat it up with some Crysis or BF3 and see what they read.

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers

I'd only start to think about ways of cooling it if your CPU temperature goes above the low 60s under load, and if your GPUs hit the 90s. On a hot day, high temperatures compound temps in an exponential way; so like, 7 more degrees inside your room might bump your temps up by 9 degrees, but 15 more degrees in your room might bump the temps on your hardware up by literally 25 degrees. Before I got A/C like six years ago, the amount they could vary based on overall room temperature was tremendous.

Now that you mention it, on those rare extremely hot days we get in Arlington in August, we have a small, in-window air conditioner out in the living room. Then I put a box fan, blowing outside in the computer room to draw the cool air from the living room across the house into the computer room. So it does stay fairly cool in there. Otherwise that little room gets uncomfortable. We have a big hill behind our house to the west, so generally we get no sun after 3pm. A nice feature of our little hovel in the woods here. Oh, and I did ask the wife about why she's got the monitor sitting back so far. She said "that thing gives me a headache when it's so close", and "We didn't need a new monitor, my old one was fine". So I was spot on about the passive-aggressive thing. I'd ask her if she wants her old monitor back, but that 27" is just a bit too big for my little stand out here. The 24" is pushing it! lol So here's what I'm gonna do. Every other day, I'm gonna scooch it up about a quarter inch, maybe less, so she doesn't notice. I'll have to kind of move surrounding items so she doesn't notice. I bet you in one month I can have that thing where it needs to be and she'll never think a thing about it! hahaha I should snap a pic after each move and paste 'em together in a time-lapse. I let you know if she catches on. I'll just bet I can pull this off!

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers

After many years of beng a cheap bastard and running on hand me downs, I had an opportunity to snatch a machine out of the test lab at the office as it was no longer needed. Just set it up @home tonight.

You guys all have nice systems. Mine is not impressive at all but works very well.

Mine:* Intel® Core™ i5-650 Processor (4M Cache, 3.20 GHz)* GeForce GTS450* Intel 120GB SSD << I have the same! I also have an average 1TB HD and a few dozen externals lol* 16GB Ram (I don't think I use it all... but I owned a computer store so we just filled it up.* dual monitors: 2 32" HP 2709m* Corsair TX750 PSU (I like to keep all programs on all the time lol)* Crap Altec Lansing speakers (I'm usually on headphones)

It's good enough where I have photoshop (and bridge0, reason, spotify, all office applications, premiere and chrome (with about 10 tabs) open at once and see little performance problems.

sadhappy wrote:After many years of beng a cheap bastard and running on hand me downs, I had an opportunity to snatch a machine out of the test lab at the office as it was no longer needed. Just set it up @home tonight.

Yeah, I'm jealous of your 7.9 HD score. The SSD Drive's are really starting to drop in price now, and I'm eyeing a 500 gig one at NewEgg.com that's down to a bit over $600. It'll happen within the next year. An SSD drive is probably the single upgrade right now that will make the most difference in your total system speed.

And right now, 8 gigs of RAM is plenty, but RAM is so damn cheap now that you may as well get some more. You could double it to 16 for like 50 to 60 bucks! So what the hell? Make sure you get the same make and model though. Heard that's pretty important... Do you concur Roland?

Last edited by BlueThunder on Fri Mar 09, 2012 7:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers

hawky wrote:You guys all have nice systems. Mine is not impressive at all but works very well.

Mine:* Intel® Core™ i5-650 Processor (4M Cache, 3.20 GHz)* GeForce GTS450* Intel 120GB SSD << I have the same! I also have an average 1TB HD and a few dozen externals lol* 16GB Ram (I don't think I use it all... but I owned a computer store so we just filled it up.* dual monitors: 2 32" HP 2709m* Corsair TX750 PSU (I like to keep all programs on all the time lol)* Crap Altec Lansing speakers (I'm usually on headphones)

It's good enough where I have photoshop (and bridge0, reason, spotify, all office applications, premiere and chrome (with about 10 tabs) open at once and see little performance problems.

That's a powerful system. Some of us just go overboard a bit.

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers

I removed the side panel to add another 4 gig ram module today, so I thought I'd snap a few pics since I was too lazy to do it the last time. It's got 16 gigs now, and you can see the new one I installed in the upper right of the motherboard...the 2 on the left that are close together. I also upgraded from Windows 7 Home Premium to Ultimate so I can go beyond 16 gigs ram up to 32 if I feel compelled to waste the money. 16 is overkill at the moment. I got Ultimate so I can use the Win XP emulator to play some old games that I still enjoy that aren't compatible with Win 7, like "Real War" and "Crimson Skies". Note how this Motherboard has elements of an assault rifle. The clip, forward hand rest and barrel. Kinda stupid and cool at the same time. And yes, a bullet is showing at the top of the clip. lol Didn't think to take a pic of that. Next upgrade: Either a SSD HD or GTX 590 video card, unless the new 600 series catches up. Gonna wait awhile on both. Prices on SSD HD's are dropping fast! That will make the biggest difference by far in system speed! Gotta be at least a 500 gig though. Once those two last upgrades are done, this computer is completed...for probably 3 to 5 years.

"Marshawn Lynch does not run. He Rumbles. And he shook the ground with a perfect '10' on the Beast-quake Scale"NFL Films on 24 yard TD run in NFCCG vs Packers